


The Bitter Fruits

by Inky_Pens



Category: The Folk of the Air - Holly Black
Genre: Like so much, So much angst, alcoholism and repressed feelings, because you know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-23 22:44:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20348050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inky_Pens/pseuds/Inky_Pens
Summary: When Jude refuses exile, she is forced to endure an perpetually drunk and increasingly dangerous Cardan, much to both of their resentments.(This is a spinoff of my chapter "Bellicose" in my series, These Mortal Moments.)





	1. Chapter 1

Not even the water rippled. 

“…let her not step one foot in Faerie or forfeit or life.”

Silence descended like drought on a starving land. He had the rapt attention of every breathing soul who stood slack-jawed on this godforsaken island. My blood ran cold, or maybe the cold was always in my bones, the knowing that nothing good ever lasts, and nothing that lasts is ever good. 

I am not Cardan, and I have no skill at playing with my words.

“Excuse me?” My voice is dangerously low, its threat permeating the thick air as the Folk look on. If I could take my murderous glare off Cardan, I would see Orlagh’s sharp smirk and Nicasia’s shit-eating grin. 

“Was my command not clear? You are hereby exiled from our lands, never to return, until such time the crown finds you—”

“I AM THE CROWN!” I roar. My body shakes violently as it gives into feral anger. It rips me at the seams, strangles me by the throat, smothers my sight with flashes of red. I could kill him. I will kill him. When he is alone and least suspecting, drunk off of the most expensive liquors in all of Faerie, I will run him through with Nightfell. I will take such immense pleasure at the sound of his gurgles deep within his throat while he chokes on his own blood. I hope he begs for forgiveness. 

When the Folk titter and gossip around me, I nearly kill them all, too. 

Control, I scold myself. I bite the inside of my cheeks until my mouth tastes like rust. It’s a trick I’m employed since childhood, the sharpness of the silent pain grounding me until I could taste nothing but my own mortality on my tongue to remind me that I am not invincible here. 

Cardan does not even flinch. His lips quirk into a sneer that permanently fits the mask he wears at all times. “Sentinels.” With one word, they march forward, making to grab me, But I make a mad dash for a steed, spearing one, two guards along the way until I am in front of Cardan, my horse alongside his, my body facing his tightly-coiled frame. Up close, I can see his anxiety pooling into the edges of his irises and the way his thighs tremble as they grip his horse’s back. At some point, he must have stopped the Sentinels or they stopped themselves, afraid of me. 

When I speak, it is a whisper only the two of us can her. It whistles through gritted teeth, but I know he understands it all the same.

“I am the crown,” I repeat. “I pardon myself.”

“Jude,” he whispers back, just as fiercely. He is not without his own lividity, but for what, I don’t know. Because of Balekin? Cruel, torturous Balekin? He looks as though he is trying to convey something in a narrowed gaze, but I cannot decipher it. “Do not make this harder.”

I am unyielding.

“Go fuck yourself.” I hold our eye contact until I am sure my point has been driven home, then I turn back towards the palace. I vaguely hear him call off the Sentinels. The words echo behind me.

“Leave her. She will be dealt with.”

I am sure Orlagh and Nicasia are sneering at him. They probably think him weak (he is) and inept (he is). Good. Let him climb out of the grave he dug himself. This is one asinine decision I will not stand by to rescue him.

When the sun is high enough that sleep should come easily, I find myself trembling at my desk. I am restless and uneasy, and truth be told, I am terrified of what Cardan is capable of. I should not have come back here, but then, where else was I to go? Madoc and Taryn are in league with one another, plotting and scheduling to who knows what end. My own twin, who would turn against a blood bond we share like none other, and for what? For whom? It would be easier if I thought it was to save her own neck, but it unsettles be deep within my marrow to think it was for Locke. 

Every door with outside access into my apartments is barricaded with heavy furniture. Tables and chairs, bookshelves with the books. Still, it does not feel enough. I know it is not. If Cardan really wanted to get in, he would find a way. He would burn the palace down if it would bring me to my knees at his feet. 

So in addition to the bespoke fortress, I am armed from the roots of my hair to the tips of my boots. Inside my hastily-braided crown is a thick wire, or a makeshift noose. My fingers contain my sharpest rings. There are three knives tucked in my bra—one under each arm and another in the center. I have knives in my boots, satchels of poisons hanging on a belt across my waist, and Nightfell at my hip. He may have to drag me out of here, but I will not make it easy on the guards he sends to do the deed for their spiteful king. 

Or I could kill him, like I swore to myself I would. He more than deserves it for being bastard as rotten as the Faerie fruit his skeleton forced down my throat. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him.

I hate him.

The lie is loud enough in my head to almost smother the truth. Almost. It whispers between breaths, taunting me with lightning-flash memories of how his lips felt against mine. How his skin felt against mine. The way may body molded under his fingertips. It aches unbearably. In the tiny cracks of my anger is the unfathomable pain of betrayal, for Cardan did betray me in the worst way yet. He made me love him, made me trust him, and not even six hours later, he made me regret it more than anything I have ever done. 

While I ruminate on this, I don’t notice the first tear fall, nor the second or third. I don’t notice until my neck is wet, and my cheeks are heated with the emotional toil of it all. 

I also don’t notice the boy-king silently winding down the staircase towards me.


	2. Chapter 2

Either I’ve gotten better at slyfooting or she’s gotten worse at spymastering. 

I am just drunk enough to have the balls to sneak in here, but not so drunk that I can’t step silently on the plush-carpeted steps as I wind my way towards her. While I still have my eyeballs in their sockets, I watch her carefully, anticipating the moment she senses my presence and throws a blade my way. She doesn’t, but I do see her pick up the skirts of her dress to wipe her face and neck. The light tan of her dress comes away with splotches. 

My heart clenches at the sight and suddenly I am fraught with unease at having seen her in such a vulnerable state without her consent. Seeing her in the throes of passion is one thing; it’s a heady feeling to know that I gave the pleasure to her. But seeing her like this, trembling and cornered in her own living quarters, washes a type of shame over me that I don’t care to swallow right now. 

So like an idiot, I clear my throat of it instead. 

The knife sings past me so quickly I don’t even feel the air move around it. 

“Gods, that is impressive,” I breathe, almost forgetting that I have her attention. I watch her hard face glaring at me, giving nothing away but the anger rolling off of her. Unconsciously, I shift my feet beneath me to keep myself upright. 

“You could have killed me just then,” I muse. I bring the crimson wine to my lips, the bottle less heavy than it was when I started it an hour ago, but still a solid enough weight to fracture her skull if I need to. Not that I came in here to hurt her. Come to think of it, I don’t know why I came in here. 

“If I didn’t intend to miss, I wouldn’t have.” Her voice is soft, much, much softer than it ought to be. I suspect if she were any louder, I would hear the raspy croak that evidenced her crying. My insides tense, clenching against the discomfort of a shame I don’t know how to feel.

“Right, well. I’ll be going.” I turn too quickly on the steps and proceed to stumble, flailing in a way that is wholly unbecoming of a king as I knock into each stair in my descent. “Or not,” I mumble into the carpet. 

Her knee is against my back the second I attempt to get up. The edge of another blade kisses the hollow of my throat at an angle that could sever my head, neck and all, clean from my torso. Another hand fists my hair to yank at my scalp in a way I don’t find wholly unpleasant. I’m reminded of the last time I felt her fingers tugging my hair, but I seem to recall our positions reversed in that memory. 

“You have a lot of fucking nerve. “Explain yourself. First with how you got into my apartments.” 

I cannot stop the grunt of pain in the back of my mouth. “Can we lose the knife?”  
“No. Start talking or I start cutting.”

“There is a tall mirror in your dressing room. It leads to a hallway that eventually connects to my chambers. Kings like to visit their consorts whenever pleases them, you see.”

“Are you trying to provoke your death, or are you just too drunk to give a damn about what comes out of your mouth right now?”

“Probably both,” I answer in all sincerity. I cannot lie. “You have caused me quite the trouble with Queen Orlagh. Whatever reprieve I could have gained from her lies with Nicasia, who will now be staying Undersea with her mother. She refused to fulfill a role as ambassador while you were still in Elfhame.”

“I’m devastated,” she deadpans. “So you were going to get rid of me and hold Nicasia as a glorified hostage. Just enough of a threat to her wellbeing to keep Orlagh in line while you…did what exactly?”

“Strengthen alliances. Build an army. Whatever needs to be done before she strikes. And she will strike. Nicasia was just insurance that it would not be closely imminent.”

She scoffs. A haughty sound that does not suit her. “It’s a piss-poor plan at best. The ends do not justify the means. You mean to exile me from my home, MY home, to buy yourself some time with Orlagh? That is not the whole truth, and you know it. Try again, Cardan.”

She presses the flat of the blade against my throat and the pressure is just enough to strain my breathing. But I will not be threatened by her so easily. I realize it was a rare moment of truth from her earlier. If she intended to kill me, she would have. But she needs me on the throne for as much time as she can bargain, until Oak is deemed ready, if he is to be ready at all.

And annoyingly, she is right. There is more to her exile than a haphazard plan, but I needn’t tell her any of that. 

Sobriety has begun to dawn on me, but instead of bringing light to the darkness, it clouds over me with the feelings I have been trying to avoid for several months now. They creep in on the edges of me, a dozen different quiet voices pulling the strings to unravel the cruel composure I have spun all these years. If I speak, I may tell her how I mourn my family. My family who never loved me, who sacrificed me like a lamb to the slaughter to a merciless Balekin. If my lips were to part even an inch, I might whisper to her the dreams I have had of her for as long as I remember, and the relief I took in them, almost nightly. I may tell her how the scars that litter my shoulders and back were a different kind of relief, like punishment for craving her so badly, and how each one, each pearlescent fissure, is her name carved into my skin. I may tell her how I began hearing her name in the crack of the whip, and maybe that is why I hate her so terribly. I would tell her so many truths until she could bear no more and only then would she beg me to rid her from this crown she has trapped us both in.  
“I’m waiting, Cardan,” she growls against my ear. A mistake to give away her position, because it allows me to knock my head back into hers, smashing against her nose and upper lip. I flip over at the same time that I see her backing away with a look of shock and horror. I might laugh but for her nose and mouth spilling blood between her fingers and down her forearm. 

“What does it matter, dear Jude? You are here anyway. You are unwanted in Faerie, like you have been all your life, yet you choose to remain in a place that offers you nothing but suffering. You are either a martyr or a masochist, but so long as you are in my palace, you will behave with decency if not decorum. You haven’t anywhere else to go. Madoc and your gods-forsaken sister are plotting against you. The Court of Shadows answers to me, and Orlagh would love nothing more than the chance to ensnare you in her depths once again. Keep spitting on my good graces, and you might find me less enthused to rescue you again.”

Her breathing is ragged, but to her credit, she remains upright and firm in front of me. I catch the sound her inhales growing wetter. She’s swallowing blood. It confuses me when I step forward to attend to her but thank gods she takes it as a threat and takes two steps back. 

“Leave now.” Her voice trembles just the faintest bit. Anyone else would miss it. Anyone else would never think to look for it.

I turn back the way I came, fixing a cold smirk on my lips as I ascent the steps. “Get some sleep, seneschal. I believe you have a Living Council meeting at 6 o’clock.”

The mirror shuts behind me and leaves me in the dark passageway that will lead me back to my rooms. I can make the walk in a matter of seconds. 

I finish the wine before then.


End file.
